And we saw a similar effect with the effect that TenoTac has on the soft tissue side of bunion deformities. And that had a very similar effect on our entire bunion portfolio and our algorithm for addressing bunion deformities. And so — and then back in fracture fixation with things like the Pin to Bar external that we launched earlier this year and addressing an entire piece of the fracture, which is allowing the soft tissue swelling to subside and preparing you for internal fixation down the road. So just really complementary products. And a lot of the products we’ve launched really since 2019 and 2020, things like the ankle fusion portfolio and the total ankle replacement, those are products that are really geared towards medical education.
And like I mentioned with the international surgeons that are here right now, I think every course that we do puts a spotlight on the entire portfolio, not just some of those new products but everything — we have to address these indications. And so everything seems to feed on itself. And then I’ll tell you that I’m just so proud of our sales force. And we’ve got such an amazing sales team who just are always figuring out ways to better service every single surgery we do. They’re giving us constant feedback about areas we need to be thinking about and how our products are performing and their ability to just represent our portfolio in a meaningful way is something we’re really proud of.
Dave Turkaly: I guess as a quick follow-up, I know you mentioned the 32 studies with Disior and SMART 28 progress. Even if you look across extremities, I’m just curious, upper and lower, are you seeing anything from the competition out there? I mean, not saying commercialized but like even on the study front, I’m trying to get an idea of what kind of head start you might have? It seems like it might be fairly large, but any thoughts there?
Albert DaCosta: Yes. So maybe to start that one, I would tell you, just philosophically, the way we think about research. And I mentioned just before that, we’re really excited about being a part of this space in a meaningful way. Foot & ankle is still a young and emerging segment of orthopedics. And so we need some really meaningful research. We need a better understanding of the limitations of the procedures we’re doing and maybe even considerations we haven’t yet generated, right? And so we like to really do research well before there’s a product in mind. And we are committed to publishing that research. If it can help a surgeon in developing a different perspective on something we thought we knew yesterday, we’re committed to doing that.
And so a lot of that research you see that we publish — there are things like animal studies that we’ve conducted to try to understand the soft tissue healing cascade and we’ve histologically evaluated the different stages of soft tissue healing to see if we can maybe a little bit away from scar-mediated healing into more of a regenerative process using physiologic implants. That feedback was really instrumental in developing the R3ACT Stabilization Group, right? And so we’ve got — and we’re really proud of that. We’ve got a lot of research that’s committed to a better understanding of the pathology and the indications. We’ve also got — and I think Europe has really triggered us to start thinking about an EU MDR initiatives that really got us to start looking at the clinical efficacy of the products, the technology we have on the market.
And so, we’ve got a lot of meaningful projects there. And I would think in that side of it, David, we’re probably more universal there. I think our competition is seeing similar pressure from the EU MDR initiative to work on some of those studies. But I think where we really make an impact is that unbiased, upfront research that ultimately drives the development process instead of the other way around.